Hello Trigger, My Old Friend

Isn’t it funny how we can be living our best lives, feeling confident, strong, and free of the old wounds we used to carry around, and suddenly one day something happens or you even think something is going to happen, and next thing you know you’re getting swept up by a trigger that becomes all consuming?

At this point in the game, I’m grateful to be able to witness my reactions to triggers. I welcome them as messengers and identifiers of where I’m not free.

This doesn’t mean I seek out the feeling of anxiety that manifests physically in my body, causing nausea, tightness, butterflies, the works. I still get carried away in the story when it happens. Spiraling, catastrophizing, grasping, and ultimately frozen. In the past it also looked like making drastic decisions, saying things I’d later regret, and self-destructing.

I’ve begun to realize that I spend a lot of time and emotional bandwidth avoiding that feeling. Avoiding feeling this anxiety by dusting rose petals over things that don’t sit right with me and fighting to become someone who is ok with whatever is happening.

For a lot of us, we begin our healing work, see how freeing it can be to work through our pain and rewire our pathways- and then we get lost in the spiritual bypassing sauce. There is a difference between reframing and dismissing. We don’t have to get triggered by everything that doesn’t feel good, but when we dismiss all negative feelings in favor of turning everything into a positive, we cheat ourselves in the process.

Being human cannot be experienced solely in our heads. We can’t think our way out of every situation the way we convince ourselves we can. We have minds, but we also have bodies. And integrating them both to align and work together is the whole game of being here.

When you dismiss something over and over again in your mind, you end up with suppressed emotions that live in your body instead. We can try to trick ourselves into not thinking about something, but our bodies will not let us get away with this for too long.

I catch myself repeating the same horror story to myself over and over again. I’ll do what I can in between to feel some relief. I’ll listen to a podcast, sing to myself, journal about it, call a friend. And then I’ll let my guard down for a moment, just long enough for the slideshow of pain to start over again.

I feel tempted to get angry about this. Frustrated that I can’t just let it go the way I want to on a conscious level.

But the invitation is to just notice it. Without judgment, or attachment. Just notice how powerful our mind/body connection is, notice how deeply personal we make things, and how great we become at storytelling & future tripping so that we can avoid the uncertainty plaguing our fields.

What happens when we avoid feeling something? We begin to increase the power the fear has over us. It begins to develop a mind of its own.

In these moments, I can identify with feeling triggered, anxious, afraid, and hurt; while also identifying as a spirit inhabiting a human vessel who is aware that everything is unfolding the way it’s meant to. Because I’m here to learn, after all. And it’s truly all a part of the curriculum. Turns out we don’t get to write our own syllabus.

Ram Dass reminds us that:

“Fear comes out of your identification with your separateness. As long you are separate, you are identified with that which is in time and space. And that which is in time and space is changing. You are identified with something which is changing all the time, and that has inherent within it fear.”

So that’s bad news for us who feel like we can cheat our fear and numb or run our way out of feeling the discomfort that comes with it.

I say that I aim for wholeness. I say that my goal is to be free.

And it turns out that no matter how much I try to run away from it, the truth is that being whole and free means feeling the full spectrum of emotions that come with being human, while simultaneously releasing attachment to the experience and the stories that inevitably come with it..

So here we are, knowing this to be true while still getting lost “in it" when the trigger comes up.

I definitely won’t seek out feeling triggered, but I find ease in knowing that when they present themselves to me, I can celebrate getting a little less off track each time. What would have kept me stuck and frozen for weeks now only lasts a day or two, or even a few hours when I’m lucky. It’s all part of the unfolding.

I extend my heart to yours as we navigate this life, our triggers, and our triumphs, together. You’re doing great.

With Love and Gratitude,

Lena